Anonymous Just Declared Total War On This 2016 Candidate

The Anonymous hackers are back and they have a new target: New York real estate mogul billionaire Donald J. Trump.

Anonymous’ hack of choice is the distributed denial of service attack. This includes overwhelming a website with traffic thus crashing it. In the past ISIS has targeted the KKK, ISIS, the countries of Turkey and Hungary, and the tech startup CloudFlare whom they accused of hosting terrorist websites.

For the specific Trump attack it appears that the hacking group wants to target TrumpChicago.com on April Fools Day (4/1). Some of the groups members put out a warning to Trump back in December but given the informal nature of Anonymous, no attacks came of the threat for him to silence his rhetoric.

“Dear Donald Trump, we have been watching you for a long time and what we see is deeply disturbing.”

“Your inconsistent and hateful campaign has not only shocked the United States of America—you have shocked the entire planet with your appalling actions and ideas…This is a call to arms.”

“We need you to shut down his website. Research and expose what he doesn’t want the public to know. We need you to dismantle his campaign and sabotage his brand.”

The video also includes a montage of all of Trump’s remarks that have been deemed offensive by some in the media. For example: the mocking of a reporter with a disability, his comments on Mexicans and his insults against women.

An active-duty Army captain and member of Anonymous describes how the organization operates, his own involvement in the Arab Spring, how the crackdown on Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden has affected soldiers, and how more leaks are on the way. He has agreed to speak with BuzzFeed on the condition of anonymity.

Are there a lot of members of Anonymous in the Army?There are more than you would think, more heavily in the techie world [of the military] — especially at Fort Huachuca, where all the intel people are. A lot of them wanted to get the job [there] because they want to learn secret stuff and have a better personal understanding of how the world actually works.

How do you know who is in Anonymous?Initially we have the handshaking phase. The lingo is still relatively unknown. In conversation, you drop in jokes. If you are with someone on a mission, you’re like, “Man, there are over 9,000 reasons that this is a bad idea.” That initially establishes friendship. Once you feel comfortable with the person and they aren’t just posing as part of the culture, then you talk about what they’ve done and how much a part of it they are. It gets to the point where you are discussing individual operations.

What are the most popular operations amongst soldiers?Anonymous is so distributed and leaderless that everyone has operations they love and hate. Operation Cartel, especially at Fort Bliss. Operation Dark Net was universally loved. And Operation Payback was pretty well received.

Could Anonymous do serious damage to the Trump campaign? Share your thoughts in the comments below!